Gibbs' Gut, Tony's Head
by AgentDiNozzo13
Summary: Theres something not right with Tony, and Gibbs needs to help Tony realize who his true family is. One-Shot. NO slash. Summary sucks sorry. Rated T for slight language and one small mention of abuse. AUTHORS NOTE ADDED! Please Read! Chapter 2
1. Chapter 1

Tony slung his backpack over his shoulder before rushing out the door of his apartment, barely remembering to lock it. He was already a half hour late and didn't plan on making Gibbs wait any longer. Making Gibbs wait was never a smart idea.

The back of his head pounded from the minor concussion he had received the previous night. Director Shepherd sent him on yet another undercover mission and he somehow managed to get pushed out of a six-story building. Just his luck. Hopefully they didn't have any work in the field today. Tony didn't think he would be able to handle it.

He didn't even have time to stop and admire his mint condition '66 black mustang before speeding down the street towards NCIS headquarters. There was no radio blasting this morning. Sinatra was good for almost anything. Parties, background noise, making love, but definitely not a concussion. The blinking traffic lights were bad enough.

He reached NCIS in record time, and slid into the elevator next to someone just as the doors closed. He didn't bother to see who it was until he felt the hard slap on the back of his head.

He groaned slightly and said sarcastically, "Nice to see you too, boss."

The sarcasm in Tony's voice only fueled Gibbs' anger.

"What the hell do you think you're doin', DiNozzo?"

"Well, I _was_ heading to the bullpen. What're you doing?" he said with classic DiNozzo smooth talk.

"Dead petty officer found near an old warehouse on base. Meet us at the car in two minutes or don't bother showing up for work tomorrow."

Tony was slightly hurt, and the yelling made his head throb harder. But as usual, he hid the hurt, both mental and physical, and put on the DiNozzo charm.

"Got it boss."

And with that the elevator doors slid open, revealing the bullpen. Tony ran over to his desk and grabbed his badge and gun, then managed to slip back into the elevator again before it took Gibbs to the parking garage. They rode down in silence, Gibbs obviously still fuming.

Tony tried his best to ignore the constant ding of the elevator as it passed floors, for with each ding came a sharp pain shooting through his head.

Gibbs was also trying to ignore something. He was trying to ignore the feeling in his gut that Tony wasn't acting right today. It was like his usual mask of immaturity was slipping off, and Tony was struggling to keep it on.

Luckily, the elevator came to a halt and slid open, allowing both men to be released from their thoughts and head to the car where Ziva and McGee were waiting. Both were seated in the back, leaving the drivers seat for Gibbs and the passenger seat for Tony.

Tony thought this was slightly unusual. Usually he and Ziva fought to the death for shotgun. But there she was, quietly sitting in the back beside a busily typing McGee. When Tony got into the car, Ziva leaned forward slightly.

"Where have you been, Tony?"

"Just running late. Why? Were you worried about me Zee-vah?" Tony stretched her name out good-naturedly, trying to be his usual self. He didn't want to give any indication of the sharp ringing running through his head.

"Well you _are_ my partner. I have no choice but to worry."

"Well you must care because you let me have shot gun."

"I just thought it would be nice if we weren't fighting tooth and hand for it for a change."

"That's tooth and _nail_, Ziva."

She rolled her eyes and buckled as Gibbs got in the drivers side. They needed to be prepared when it came to a ride with Gibbs behind the wheel.

McGee didn't even seem to notice Tony's presence. He had his laptop perched on his knees and was typing close to a thousand words a minute.

"Whatcha typin' there, Probie?" Tony asked, craning his neck around in effort to see McGee.

"I'm locating the GPS signal of the Petty Officers car. It wasn't in his driveway this morning so it must have been stolen. I also triangulated his cell phone location. It looks like it's in the car, boss." McGee said redirecting the conversation to Gibbs rather than Tony.

"Well where's the car, McGee?" Gibbs asked in an annoyed tone.

"Well, um, boss I don't exactly know yet."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Gibbs quickly retaliated.

"Well it seems someone must have redirected my signal to give me false coordinates. It's saying the car is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean." McGee said, confused and slightly frustrated.

"Dammit McGee!" Gibbs said, not quite to McGee. He was more so saying it to whomever it was that altered the coordinates.

McGee made no move to respond. He knew better than that when Gibbs was in this kind of mood. Which he seemingly always was.

The rest of the car ride was unusually silent. Tony usually had a way of annoying the hell out of them when they were driving through traffic. Whether it was talking incessantly or slurping noisily out of a drink cup, Tony always managed to keep them with some sort of background noise. But not this time. This time they all sat in the ghostly silence of the car, and Ziva noticed Tony occasionally rubbing the back of his head gently.

When they arrived at the crime scene, a large swarm of Metro cops were bustling about, trying to look like they were professionals and knew what they were doing. Ziva stifled laughter. One particularly confident unie (uniformed cop) came forward presenting his badge in pride.

"Officer Steve Kendall, Metro PD." He stated, flipping the badge closed and clipping it back onto his seath, trying to make them pay particular attention to the sig at his waist, as if it proved his superiority. Tony was the only one interested in the officer's cockiness. He put his hand on his waist, allowing his jacket corner to be drawn back, revealing his own sig in place next to his official Federal Agent badge. The unie immediately looked embarrassed.

"You guys are feds?" he asked, unable to cover the edge of embarrassment in his voice.

"NCIS." Gibbs said.

The guy tilted his head slightly.

"It stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service." Tony said with an air of a bragging teenager hidden in his voice.

"Oh." Was all the officer said before heading off to get the lead detective.

Gibbs almost smiled at the newbie's confidence. McGee had been like that on his first day. Until Tony and Kate got a hold of him, that is. Particularly in the Napolitano case, when they had McGee stay in front while searching a bombing range. Newbie's had it rough.

Gibbs didn't bother to wait for the lead detective. All metro cops had a bad attitude and were overall unhelpful. He sent his team off to their jobs and proceeded in interviewing witnesses.

Tony was sent to bag and tag. Ziva took a few pictures of a thread before Tony used tweezers to gently collect and seal it in an evidence bag. When another thread came drifting down in front of them, they both looked up. Hanging about twenty feet above them was a noose. In it was a man's body hanging limp. Ziva looked up and zoomed the camera lens into focus, taking a few shots of the body. Gibbs came over to them at that moment, as he always seemed to appear whenever they found something.

"Witness statements say they noticed this guy hanging here around 0600 hours this morning. No one knows how he got there." Gibbs stated.

Tony and Ziva nodded, finishing up that area of the crime scene. It was then that they all noticed McGee talking excitedly to one of the Metro cops. Tony was the first to say anything.

"I guess probie's stay in herds. Like zebras. And they all look the same, too." He joked.

No one laughed, although a smile was slightly visible on Ziva's face. It was then that Ducky and Palmer pulled up in the NCIS van. They both grabbed onto the gurney and hauled it out. Palmer looked around before turning to Tony.

"Where's the body?"  
Tony smiled.

"You aren't looking high enough."

Jimmy looked up and saw the man hanging by the noose, and a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"I think we're going to need a pretty big-"

"Ladder?" A fireman who had apparently been standing behind them offered. A fire truck pulled up beside them and an automatic ladder was slowly being drawn up to its full height.

Jimmy gulped and began to slowly make his descent up the ladder. The team watched with amusement.

Just before he reached the top, the ratty rope broke, allowing the body to fall directly on top of him. Palmer let out a surprisingly high-pitched scream and shook the body off. Everyone below watched as the body came hurtling down towards them.

Tony was the most amused at what happened next.

The dead body came directly down onto the gurney. It wasn't exactly in the proper position, with its legs hanging off to one side and the head twisted around facing them, but it was a pretty funny coincidence. Jimmy was still clinging to the ladder many stories above them.

A fireman came over beside the team and said, "We were gonna' send a man up there to get him. What's the geek doin' up there?"

Tony chuckled to himself and cupped his hands around his mouth yelling to Palmer, "Whatever you do, don't look down." And he gave him a thumbs-up with a big smile.

_____________

Ducky was in the morgue performing an autopsy on the body that had earlier crashed down on his assistants head. Ducky was in the midst of a conversation with the dead man when the elevator doors slid open revealing Tony holding a hand to his head.

"Hello Anthony. I was just telling our unfortunate petty officer here about the time I was in Scandinavia performing a double-bypass surgery on-"

"Not now Duck. You got any of those pain meds from last time?"

"Another undercover mission gone bad, I suppose?" Ducky questioned.

"You could say that." Tony said remembering his terrifying plunge out of a six-story window.

Ducky sighed and looked at Tony with concern before getting a small bottle of pills out of the cabinet. The elderly ME shook two pills out of the container and dumped them in Tony's cupped hands.

"You're a life saver Duck." Tony said before dry-swallowing the small pills.

"That really isn't good for your throat, Tony." Ducky inquired.

"I always dry-swallow. Its easier, makes a man out of you, my father always said."

Ducky shook his head slowly as Tony headed out of autopsy. He leaned over the body of the petty officer and spoke in a low voice.

"He's can't keep these missions a secret from Gibbs forever. He'll have to tell him eventually…. I hope."

____________

Back at the bullpen, Tony sat engulfed in thought at his desk. Just at that moment, Gibbs walked in and shouted, "DiNozzo!"

Tony's head flew up from its resting place in his hand and he muttered a quick, "Yeah boss?"

"Quit laying around and get to work!"

Tony nodded and tried not to clutch his head in pain from the outburst. Moving his head so quickly now left stars floating around in front of his line of vision. Two McGee's, or at least that's what it looked like, walked to their…. his…. desk.

Gibbs rubbed a hand down his face and headed out for coffee.

__________

Gibbs walked down the street towards NCIS headquarters, a fresh coffee in hand. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with DiNozzo. On several occasions today he had seen him either holding a hand to his head or blinking away dizziness. He thought back to the events of the previous week. Nothing happened on duty that could have damaged Tony's head in any way, other than the occasional head slap.

Gibbs changed his train of thought. Now he was searching through all the times that Tony had ever gotten a concussion. The most memorable would definitely be the one he received during an undercover operation with Operation Lodestone. That was the Benoit case. Gibbs found out about Tony's undercover work shortly after that.

Gibbs hadn't been happy when he found out that Director Shepherd had been holding secret under-cover opps without informing Gibbs that it included one of his best agents. He clenched his coffee cup tighter with anger, remembering how Tony had nearly killed himself when a gun barrel was slammed against his skull while being held captive in the morgue of a hospital with Jeanne Benoit.

Gibbs didn't think that the director would hold out on him with yet another under cover operation, but he had to try the theory. Upon arriving back at NCIS, he marched straight into the Directors office.

"Care to knock, Jethro?" she said as he slammed his cup down onto her desk.

"DiNozzo." He stated.

"What about DiNozzo?" she questioned.

"You know damn well what about DiNozzo." He barked.

Jenny immediately assumed he had found out about Tony's work for her last night.

"You mean last night?"

This was just what Gibbs was waiting for.

"I don't know! What _did_ happen last night that has my agent loping around in some other world?"

Jenny gulped. Apparently he hadn't heard, and she just blew it. Big time.

She sighed and tried to hide her embarrassment.

"Just a one-time opp that I needed DiNozzo's hand with."

"And when exactly did you plan to tell me this?" he practically screamed.

"It was need-to-know basis."

"So that means never?"

"Jethro, he may be on your team but he's still _my_ agent."

"But he's _my_ son!" Gibbs blurted out suddenly.

Jenny looked taken aback.

"Jethro?"

She always knew he was proud of Tony, but never to this extent.

Gibbs rubbed a hand down his face, wishing he could take back what he just said. It wasn't that he didn't mean it, because he did. It was just that he didn't always share feelings like that with, well, anyone.

"_Jethro!_" Jenny said louder, causing Gibbs to notice that she was staring past him at the door.

Gibbs turned around and saw Tony standing in the doorway. His hand was still on the door knob, the door wide open next to him.

"Gibbs…" he managed to whisper out. He had never had much of a relationship with his father, considering the constant beatings and abandoning him at age 18 because he went to Ohio State instead of Yale. Gibbs knew about these things, but had never expressed any sort of feeling towards Tony that would suggest they were anything more than coworkers. Either that or he had just been too blind to see it. Gibbs walked over to Tony and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"Back to work, _son_." Gibbs said gently before leaving the office, a small grin making its way across his face.

Tony stared at the door where Gibbs had retreated.

"Got it, _dad_." He whispered, a smile forming on his face.

**A/N: Hope you liked it. Here's a short epilogue: Tony and Gibbs never spoke of this again but Tony knew in his heart that he was Gibbs' son.**

**So there you have it. Please review! And check out my other stories. I have two of them.**

**Bye!!! :D**


	2. Author's Note

Author's Note:

I realize from all my reviews that the ending could have been longer. I'm sorry for that but I had some writer's block and honestly didn't feel like finishing it so I thought up a quick ending.

I appreciate all your reviews and kind words.

One thing I really want to say to the reviewer "…………………." Who signed anonymously:

Thank you jerk keep your negative comments to yourself! No author wants to hear your shit so if you didn't like it you didn't have to review! God its people like you who piss me off! Oh my god how hard is it to keep your hatred to yourself??? I mean like constructive criticism I'm totally fine with, and a few mean words I can handle but _that_?!?!? That was just plain rude! So do all authors a favor and shut up.

Thank You :-)

-AgentDiNozzo13

PS: For all of you who left me nice reviews and constructive criticism thank you. I'm not mad at you at all.

PSS: To …….., I'm sorry to do that publically. Usually I don't bother paying attention to comments like that but today I just was under a lot of stress and that was "the straw that broke the camel's back", shall we say.

Thank you all! (except …..)

:D

-AgentDiNozzo13


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